Eight senators voted against marriage rights for same-sex couples, and three in favour. The majority of senators voted to replace it with a domestic partnership law. John Rankin, Bermuda’s governor, needs to sign it before it comes into effect. Bermuda is a British overseas territory with about 65,000 inhabitants. The following quote can be attributed to Boris Dittrich, LGBT rights advocacy director at Human Rights Watch:

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“The year 2017 has been great for marriage equality, with new laws in Germany, Malta, and Australia, but the year does not end well. In Bermuda, the parliament stripped marriage rights from same-sex couples and replaced it with a domestic partnership law. If Bermuda’s Governor John Rankin will sign the law, Bermuda will become the first country in the world to cancel marriage equality. Let’s hope Bermuda will remain a one-off incident and that in 2018, new countries will introduce marriage equality.”